Jensen Huang-led US based chipmaker Nvidia has become the first public company in the world to hit a $4 trillion market capitalisation, thanks to a consistent rise in its share price due to high demand for its state-of-the-art chips and AI technologies.

As the US market opened on Wednesday, Nvidia's shares surged 2.5% to hit an all-time high of $164 from its previous session close of $160. Despite uncertainty caused by US President Donald Trump's tariff war, Nvidia's share price has risen 6.7% in the past five days on Nasdaq, while its one-month and six-month gains stand at 14.42% and 20.08%, respectively. In the year-to-date period so far, the stock has surged 18%.

The chips of Nvidia, the top designer of discrete graphics processing units, are used in a variety of end markets, including high-end PCs for AI tech, gaming, data centres, and automotive infotainment systems.

Nividia's stock rally has continued despite hiccups earlier this year, when Chinese low-cost AI model DeepSeek made waves by outperforming several Western counterparts on key benchmarks, shaking investor confidence in some of the leading companies operating in the AI space.

Nvidia hit a $1 trillion market cap for the first time in June 2023. As the world embraced AI, its market capitalisation tripled in about a year. The only two other public companies with over $3 trillion market capitalisation are Apple and Microsoft.

Closely following Nvidia, Microsoft has a market capitalisation of $3.75 trillion. Its shares are also up 19.61% this calendar year, with 5.87% gains in the past month. Apple's share has slipped about 14.84% this year, due to slowing iPhone sales, increasing competition, and regulatory pressures in key markets.

Nvidia also has the highest weight in the S&P 500 index at 7.3%, followed by Apple (7%) and Microsoft (6%).

In the first quarter of FY2026, Nvidia reported revenue of $44.1 billion, up 12% from the previous quarter and up 69% from a year ago. Of this, data centre revenue stood at $39.1 billion, up 10% from Q4 and up 73% from a year ago. For the second quarter as well, Nvidia expects revenue worth $45 billion, plus or minus 2%.